Fanatics
by ScientificHufflepuff
Summary: Or, more colloquially, "fans". Because what good is a time machine, if you don't use it to meet the people who've inspired you the most? Oneshot of self-indulgent dorky fluff. Other ongoing fics should be updated in a week or so.


The door of the train coach flung open as fast as its weight and hinges would allow. Inside of the room darted the well-dressed figure of Emmett Brown, caught out of breath and wide-eyed as he whirled around, the very weighted cloth bag on his arm swinging after him in delay, watching his companion chase just a few steps behind him. Clara was similarly burdened, with her hat falling slightly into her eyes, she reached up and pulled the windowed door down after her. They stared at each other, puffing from their sprint, before Clara pressed a gloved hand over her mouth and let out a quiet, nervous laugh. Emmett joined in not a second later, bending slightly as his shoulders drew up in an almost guilty, delighted laugh.

"I can't believe we actually just-..." Began Clara, finally fixing her hat and setting her bag down on the padded passenger bench.

"I know!" Chimed her husband, doing the same. "All my life I'd-... I'd hardly even considered it was even a _possibility!_ Which made sense," he waved vaguely "he was dead long before I was even born, but even with the time machine, I-... Hah! I can't believe it'd never crossed my mind!" He removed his own hat, running his fingers through his hair as he stared off in a kind of star-struck stupor, his own toothy grinning barely faded a bit.

"You can't possibly be serious!" Said Clara, looking up at him in surprise. "I'd have thought with something like a time machine, meeting every great scientist and author would've been the first thing you'd do! Especially for the one that set you on that path in the first place."

"Completely serious!" Emmett gave a broad and barely controlled shrug. "Oh I'd thought about, I don't know, running into _Newton_ or _Einstein_ , but meeting _Jules Verne?_ I just hadn't thought about it! It barely crossed my mind as a real possibility!"

Clara picked back up with her giggling, though this time it wasn't so much a general release of nervous energy as it was simply _directed at him_.

"Oh come on, it's not entirely impossible. The subject was just-... Much too _close_ , to me and to my background I'd taken it _completely_ for granted. Tell me _you'd_ thought of the thing the minute after you found out I had a _time machine_."

"Well, no, not the minute..." Admitted Clara, smoothing out her gloves, distinctly not making eye contact. "I'd considered it after a _few days_ , once I'd gotten over the shock of everything that'd happened, and you..."

"A few _days?_ "

"There was a lot that had happened!"

"You never _mentioned_ it."

"I thought you'd already thought about it. Plus we weren't in much of a position to go to Paris, back then." She fixed the sit of his jacket. He'd gotten a bit rumpled during their dash to the train.

"Heh. We weren't." He said, looking down at her hands, then back up at her face. His momentary offense melted away, as he gripped his hands on her shoulders, exclaiming in an eager quietness. " _We just met Jules Verne!_ " He practically hopped with the thrill of it.

"We did, we did!" Clara blinked heavily, and shook her head. "I don't know if I've been that nervous in all my life."

Emmett crouched at the knees, leaning in closely. "I _know_." He said, commiserating with a bewildered head-shake. "Do you think I came off as a little too-..." He straightened up, giving a very vague sort of wave and wincing. "I didn't try to talk too much?"

"Oh! Oh, no, Emmett. You were very polite..." Clara suddenly looked alarmed. "What about me? Did I make a fool out of myself?"

Emmett gave a chuckle, then put his forehead to hers. "You did nothing of the kind. Besides, your French was _leagues_ better than mine."

" _Merci._ " Clara gave a thoughtful pause, and then a sly smirk. " _Vingt-mille?_ "

The two were lost to a fit of barely restrained snickering.

"I suppose _leaving an impression_ would be somewhat unavoidable." Said Emmett, finally having strode away to sift through the bags they'd brought back. He pulled an object out of one, a neat antique book. It looked disconcertingly new, for something that ought to be so old. An object not unlike himself, really. "I don't suppose it's every day he gets asked to sign his ah, _entire contribution to the literary canon_."

"No, I don't suppose so..." She said, picking out another after him and turning it over fondly. "You don't think he noticed some of these aren't _written_ yet, do you?"

"I switched the covers before we got there." Assured he, "So long as he didn't look too closely, he'll just think we had a _lot_ of copies of _80 Days_..." He paused, staring out into the space of the wall in front of him. "It still counts, of course." He said, assuring himself, sifting deeper through the bag to be entirely sure everything was, in fact, in order. "Looks like we didn't lose anything on the way back." He said, leaning over to tug aside the opening of the second bag, which Clara had folded her hands over. He glanced up at her. "I'd ask if you wanted to stay, do anything else, find dinner... But I haven't parked in the most _inconspicuous_ of locations this time around. It's hard to find _any_ inconspicuous location for a tricked-out steam train in Paris."

"I think I've had enough of that kind of excitement for one day." Said Clara, sitting herself down on the bench. Emmett followed suit. "I mean, meeting the person whose writing influenced my own life and career so much..."

"Don't I _know_ it."

"So we'll make Paris another trip on its' _own_ , later. In the meantime, we could bring some of it back with us?" She sifted through her own bag, and after some digging, procured a bottle and a small wrapped circle.

Emmett leveled his gaze at her. "... _Cla_ ra..." He huffed.

"Oh, no, it's _very_ new, I made sure of it." She said, turning the bottle's label over to check. "They told me it was hardly more than juice. Even _you_ shouldn't have any trouble with it."

He took the offered bottle and looked it over, relaxing a bit as he saw for himself. "Well, it couldn't hurt to _try_." He said, then looked over at the other parcel. Cheese, from the shape of it.

A knocking on the train door caused them both to start, Emmett wheeling around and Clara shooting out of her seat. "Who...?"

"Here, put in the coordinates. I'll distract them." Emmett passed off the wine, tugged at his jacket, and stepped outside the train. Clara, meanwhile, set the items somewhere secure and to the side, and began pulling the great levers that changed the layout of time circuitry along with the scrolling wheels of the display. The engine sparked and hummed at the press of a button, purring slowly to life like a great sleepy beast. She looked over out the window of the door, a little concerned. Emmett was hard to make out in the dimming light, and the man he was talking to was as well. They parted a moment later, and she tipped his head at him when he came back in.

He looked dazed again, holding a watch out by a long length of chain and staring blankly ahead. Clara recognized the timepiece as his own. After a moment, he finally, weakly, cleared his throat. "-ahm-... Il parl-... -hm-..."

"...Emmett?" Clara stepped up, concerned.

"I forgot my watch, and we're very odd people." He said, finally, and clearly.

"I'm afraid I don't know-..."

"He ah, came back. I forgot my watch, and he said we were very odd..."

"Oh!" Said Clara, realizing what and who her husband meant. "Is he...?"

Emmett waved the question off. "Gone. There isn't anyone else around that might see us taking off." He came back to his senses, and shed his jacket before moving to the great wall of a panel that was the train's main console. He was halfway to pulling the locomotive off of the ground when he stopped short, noticing something out of place. "Clara, the time circuits...?" He asked, turning towards her.

"Well..." Said Clara, stepping forwards. "I thought though I've had about enough of other _people_ for one night, but while we're out, we could stop for another one of our comets?"

The pair of them had, over the years, compiled an ever-growing list of astrological events. Only very recently had this list been allowed to shrink, the pair of them finally able to see some of those sky-wonders. Emmett's confusion faded back to his previous bright, happy mood. "Clara, have I ever mentioned I am in _love_ with the way that you think?"

Clara shyly fiddled with a dial on the console. "You may have once or twice."

"It's worth saying again." He leaned to nuzzle her a moment, and then gripped a tall slender lever which came up from the floor, putting his weight into dramatically pulling it forwards. The train hummed, wobbled, and floated off forwards into the air. It wheeled around, angled itself towards the glowing moon, and shot off into the beyond in a shower of sparks, vanishing like a firecracker. No one was witness to the sight, but the sound reached an author on his way back to his study. It was certainly a night for oddities, he thought.


End file.
